Some highlights from forum alum elsegundo (notice the mention of the die cut method as seen in the video Lydia provided, as well as the <2% ingredients that include dough conditioners and soybean oil):

Part one: ingredients of premix flour, shortening, sugar, salt, yeast

1. Weigh 9 pounds water at 95 degrees and add to mixer bowl.2. Open bag of Shakey’s Thin Crust 25# bag and pour into bowl.3. Attach dough hook to mixer, raise bowl.4. Mix on speed #1 for 7 minutes.5. Remove dough from bowl and place in 2 tubs and cover.6. Punch dough down when doubled in size.7. Place covered tubs immediately in cooler.

Dan, this one is for you and those who have been blessed with dough sheeters.

I found general instructions for sheeting the "old dough" into the new dough from one of the premix companies.I revisited the "The Great American" pizza blend that Elsegundo listed as one of the premix makers for the "California 3" many moons ago. Note that the formula has changed since his posting. Their current formula includes cornmeal. I would venture to say that this is most likely the current Shakey's mix. It's been a good handful of years since I've come across this premix, and I never tried it when it was on the shelves, but I will make sure I do grab some if it shows up again.

What I really liked about this find, was that it confirms that scrap dough is expected as part of the formula/procedure for the thin crust.

I can't argue with the conclusion that scraps are an expected part of the procedure - but only for cost saving reasons. I wouldn't agree that they are a required ingredient producing a specific Shakey’s characteristic. I've rolled skins with scraps, without scraps, old scraps and fresh scraps.

At the Rockville store, trainees were always taught to include scraps from the previous loaf cuttings, 10% per loaf but no more. The logic was that there was 10% scrap left from each loaf, but that wasn't really the case. For the entire shift, cuttings tended to be just over 10% and so the scrap pile over the course of the shift accumulated, and some dried out, particularly at the periphery of the pile. At the end of the shift there was usually a bus tub of scrap left. We trashed it at the end of the shift.

If a reused piece of scrap was too dry, the next loaf ran the risk of chunks of dried dough being dragged through the rollers like hard play doh. If the roller caught a chunk, the dough would rip, or best case there would be bits of dried dough crushed into in an otherwise smooth skin - not a desired characteristic. Considering the dehydrating effect of the cooler, we never reused the previous day's scraps in the next day's first loaves. The best skins were always from the first rolled loaf of the day when zero scraps were used. In all, we saved by reuse, but only to a point.

Here's a puzzle... When we mixed Shakey’s dough using bulk flour, water, cake yeast and solid vegetable shortening I’ve previously guessed that our batches were something on the order of 35 pounds. I don't recall the weights of flour or water that went into it, but we cut the loaf into 5 pieces and placed them into 5 bus tubs, or 7 pounds per bus tub – I think. Seeing that Shakey’s went to a 25# premix bag plus 9 pounds of water results in 34 pounds per batch - and means I may be close in my recollections.

I won't swear to any of this, but it kinda makes sense, because I could grab one of those 1/5 pieces in one hand and slam it into a bus tub. However, reading a previous post by El Segundo, using the 25 pound premix bag plus 9 pounds of water, the resultant batch was cut into two pieces, and then placed into two bus tubs. That makes 17 pounds in each bus tub, equivalent weight to three one-gallon milk bottles, and I doubt I could have one-handed one of those into a bus tub.

There’s a huge difference in rising 17 pounds of dough in one bus tub versus 7 pounds in one bus tub.I’m trying to back into the batch weights we used and this is stumping me. Anyone have any additional recollections that would resolve this difference?

Thanks - Lightmeter <<<< Since posting this, I've reconsider my 35 lb batch weight. It was likely much more than 35 lbs and so 17 lb per bus tub may indeed be correct. Read on>>>>>>

Man that brings back some memories of just how far my pizza skills have come. Elsegundo is also familiar with it as you can read in the thread. Unfortunately at the time I did not have a sheeter nor the foresight to realize just how far I would be taking this hobby seriously . At the time I had a neighbor who owned his own restaurant and he bought 3 bags of it for me. It used to be at smart and final or cash and carry type stores prior to 2005-ish but is practically vanished shortly thereafter. Anyway I remember I had some that was about 2 years old and I tried it sometime in 2008 before I left California. The dough would not rise once I mixed it. I guess the yeast had expired in it. I tried 2-3 pizzas on a couple different occaisions and it let me down. So assuming it had spoiled I threw out the last bag I had.

At the time I had contacted pizzablends on several occaisions but they would not sell retail to me. They would only sell through foodservice. I don't have a restaurant, so I pretty much gave up on it. It would be nice to try this again with my shiny new (used) sheeter Perhaps pizzablends has changed their tune? I should try them again. I still have not seen it at any retail outlets.

Anyway....we should limit the crust talk here to the Shakey's crust thread. Lightmeter I am going to post a question in there for you next, so I hope you catch it. The party's moving.....

There’s a huge difference in rising 17 pounds of dough in one bus tub versus 7 pounds in one bus tub.I’m trying to back into the batch weights we used and this is stumping me. Anyone have any additional recollections that would resolve this difference?

The problem is that elsegundo did not specify the size of the tub they were using. If you google restaurant bus tubs or restaurant dish boxes, you will find them available in several different sizes.

Also, back in the day, flour was most often sold in 50 and 100 pound bags. This adds one other unknown if the flour was first transferred to bus tubs.

My recollection of the sauce recipe was: 6 cases of puree and 2 1/2 bags of spice blend. Hand mixed with a large wire wisk. We never recommended doing it in the mixer because the acidity of the tomatoes was hard on the mixing bowl and would leach the metal taste to the sauce. Also, on the pepperoni, we used Swifts Premium Pepperoni. It was a natural casing pepperoni which was much smaller around, much redder in color and spicier than the Hormel. It was also greasier, but the payoff in flavor was well worth it. I loved the flavor and texture of the pie when we used corn meal as well. I was sad to see the switch to baking papers. They were cleaner, required less oven maintenace, but the product lost something because of it. There was also a spice blend for the beef as well as the black pepper. The cheese blend 80/10/10 and the sausage and beef were much easier to apply if the product was fluffed occasionally in the walk-in after prepping. It's amazing how much of this stuff stays with you after all these years. Your memory is pretty darn good!

put the water in first, it mixed better from the bottom up and there was no unmixed flour left at the bottom of the bowl. place mixed dough into a 35 gal nsf approved container and cover and allow to rise several times, then refrigerate for use later. ( and don't breathe in the fumes when you punch it down :-)

put the water in first, it mixed better from the bottom up and there was no unmixed flour left at the bottom of the bowl. place mixed dough into a 35 gal nsf approved container and cover and allow to rise several times, then refrigerate for use later. ( and don't breathe in the fumes when you punch it down :-)

Any idea of the weight on the "2 bags of dough blend"? I assume this was a powder?

put the water in first, it mixed better from the bottom up and there was no unmixed flour left at the bottom of the bowl. place mixed dough into a 35 gal nsf approved container and cover and allow to rise several times, then refrigerate for use later. ( and don't breathe in the fumes when you punch it down :-)

Excellent! Thanks OS Cop!

In addition to what Dan asked, was the dough blend some kind of dough relaxer + enhancer?

on reading the ingredients list for all of these, there are no weird chemicals, preservatives, etc. Just tomato puree in various concentrations + other stuff.

I add a little garlic, but thats to our taste.

Please give it a try - see what you think. I admit I'm coming at the reverse-engineering backwards (making it "reverse-reverse engineering?), but I feel I have a really close taste and feel to the original.

I've been working with a California native to clone Shakey's pizza on the east coast for about 14 months now. Part and parcel of the search for the recipe is a search for sources of the (generally foodservice grade) food required to bake these pizzas.

There are a number of threads in both this section and the Cracker Style pizza section about cloning Shakey's pizza. One of the best posts is this one which gives an insight into to what was in those mysterious bags that were added to foodservice products:http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,12688.msg122425.html#msg122425My own research has me convinced that there was and still is quite a bit of variation in the final product from store-to-store, due to different franchisees using different brands/types of the various foodservice ingredients.

I do have a few questions about the flour, cheese, and yeast. Was the flour all purpose, bread, or high gluten? Also, was it bromated? Information gleaned at several locations of franchisees who are "rolling their own" as well as at stores that dropped the franchise indicates they are presently using high gluten flour such as Pillsbury Balancer or General Mills All Trumps. Was the low moisture mozzarella whole milk or part skim? Also, was the cake yeast baker's yeast or brewer's yeast?

Did the Shakey's Cops enforce the same recipes all across the country, or were there regional differences?

The only specific I can remember about the flour for the thin crust is that it was NOT high Gluten. The high gluten flour was used for making the thick crust dough. Yes, the recipes were supposed to be the same system wide. When I went to Shakey's University ( and yes, there really was one) back in the 70's in Lakewood, Colorado, there were no variances offered for regional taste differences. I'm sorry, I don't remember the specifics on the yeast.

These are photos of a Shakey's thin crust pepperoni pizza bought from a corporate store in early 2012. The wording on one edge of the box reads "100% Whole Milk Mozzarella Cheese". This weasel-wording does not preclude other cheeses blended in with it, and to my taste buds it is indeed a blend. The pictures were taken just before the pies were wrapped up in order to smuggle them to the east coast. I had to apply Auto Brightness Correction to the photos.

That's a dead ringer for Round Table pizza. I wonder if these guys all ripped each other off? The histories on Round Table and Straw Hat pizza both date their existence to 1959. Shakeys however goes back to 1954. I think it's clear that Shakeys was making this style before the other two. They just didn't have as much brand recognition as Round Table. Straw Hat is probably the least known among the three. Dang Zing, now I have to go make some dough for tomorrow.

No, never any reunions sadly. Me-N-Eds was an off-shoot of Shakey's. It was started by Ed Plummer, Shakey Johnson original partner. As for Round Table, I never really researched it, but the urban myth back in the day was that it was started by former employees of Shakey's which would account for the similarities. I agree though, when I can't find Shakey's, Round Table seems to be the next best thing. I've been sad for many years about Shakey's. I truly believe that the chain was destined for greatness, but due to corporate mismanagement and greed over the years they managed to all but kill the chain. The people who own the chain now are REAL pizza people and have been franchise owners for 35 - 40 years that I know of. If that chain has ever had a chance to revitalize, it's NOW under their leadership. I wish them all well and look for to a vital new Shakey's.

That's a dead ringer for Round Table pizza. I wonder if these guys all ripped each other off? The histories on Round Table and Straw Hat pizza both date their existence to 1959. Shakeys however goes back to 1954. I think it's clear that Shakeys was making this style before the other two. They just didn't have as much brand recognition as Round Table. Straw Hat is probably the least known among the three. Dang Zing, now I have to go make some dough for tomorrow.

Dan, you bring up something that I have wondered about for years, as well, at least certainly between Round Table and Shakey's, and both of them starting off in California. To my recollection, I never had a Straw Hat pizza, although there were at least a couple locations here in town in the 70's (one of them has been a BBQ restaurant now for >30 years). Happy Joe's Pizza is a local chain in Iowa that also "borrowed" alot from Shakey's (the founder was a former Shakey's franchisee). As you can see from the photos below, like RT and Shakey's, they all possess a similar thin crust, as well as taking the sauce right to the edge, along with a similar blend of cheeses. As OSC mentioned, I would not be surprised if at least one of the founders of Round Table was a former Shakey's employee.